A note from Dave
Welcome to a corner of the world you didn't know existed.
Being a founder is one of the hardest, loneliest jobs in the world. You're out front, making it up as you go, holding it all together, team, vision, momentum, while wondering if you're doing any of it right.
A small corner of the world where the standards are high, the people are kind, and the work works.
My mission
Advance the craft of founder leadership.
I see leadership as a craft you practise every day. Like all crafts, it's mastered by doing, by drawing inspiration from people ahead of you, and by committing to getting better over a lifetime.
I partner with ambitious founder-CEOs determined to become exceptional leaders without losing themselves along the way. Whether you're leading a team of 20 or 2,000, the challenges keep changing. Your development can't stop.
The story behind Founder Coach
Founder Coach began with a question from one of my earliest CEOs: "Have you ever thought about turning your frameworks into a full programme?"
By then I'd spent years as both a founder and a coach, building tools to help CEOs through the messy, high-stakes problems unique to the role. Leadership programmes existed, but they served a company's executives, not its founder. So I set out to build a coaching system by a founder, specifically for founders.
You don't build a system overnight. It took shape through thousands of coaching sessions with real CEOs confronting real problems. Every framework has been battle-tested and refined through relentless repetition. If it now feels intuitive, that's because tens of thousands of hours went into making it so.
CEO workshop, Connect Ventures
CEO workshop, Partech
Foundations, Soho House
Meet your new Founder Coach.
I'm Dave. I founded three venture-backed companies. One failed, one was acquired, and one, Delivery Hero, became a unicorn. Since then I've coached more than 250 venture-backed CEOs across the US, Europe and Latin America.
Founder Coach has no bench of associate coaches. I coach every CEO personally, and I take on a small number of new CEOs each month. I'd rather go deep with a few than shallow with many.
How I coach.
- The founder sits at the centre, not the coach.
- CEO development is a long-term practice, not a quick fix.
- Momentum and tangible results come before feel-good sessions.
- Deep IP in every session: frameworks, tools and real case studies.
I experimented with peer groups early on, and learned that structured frameworks raise the level of every conversation. So I built the system around them. It worked.
Who I work with
Founder Coach isn't for everyone. The CEOs I work with are open-minded and endlessly curious. Brave enough to be vulnerable. Clear, honest communicators. Positive, generous team players. And deeply committed owners of their companies.
My life's work.
Founder Coach isn't just a business to me. Every framework, every session, every experiment serves one mission: helping exceptional founders build extraordinary companies without sacrificing themselves in the process.
Dave Bailey
Frequently asked questions
Who is Founder Coach for?
What if I'm early-stage?
How do I join?
Start with five minutes.
The CEO Focus Finder™ shows where you're strong, where you're stuck, and what we'd work on together first.
✓ Free✓ 5 minutes✓ Instant results
